


Cold hands mean a warm heart

by WondersoftheMultiverse



Series: Tumblr Drabble Requests [12]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: A.k.a the one where you wear his coat, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dhawan!Master - Freeform, Drabble, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27375859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WondersoftheMultiverse/pseuds/WondersoftheMultiverse
Summary: With chattering teeth you arched your body forwards, your barely warm breath hitting the palms of your hands as you released a deep and shuddering sigh. A small cloud of condensation lingered in the empty ominous space before you, its white puffy cloud dissipating within seconds. Eyes shifting you focused on the silhouette that lingered across from you, their own disapproving gaze meeting yours in a fiery clash of tension.“What?” You stated accusingly, your shoulders straightening as you tried to appear more comfortable and at ease with the dire situation you were currently in.“Your teeth…” The Master gritted out, his eyes narrowed as he sat back against the rocky cave wall. “-are snapping.”“And?” You digged again, the frustration and anger you felt for him slowly bubbling to the surface once more.A single bushy eyebrow slowly rose at the terseness of your tone, the Master’s arms crossing over his chest as he regarded you with mild disdain.“It’s loud.”
Relationships: Dhawan!Master x Reader - Relationship, The Master (Dhawan)/Reader, The Master (Doctor Who)/Reader
Series: Tumblr Drabble Requests [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678645
Kudos: 45





	Cold hands mean a warm heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! As always this is another feel good drabble request!  
> This was written within a time frame and has only had a once over in terms of a proof read so apologies for any errors!
> 
> Request: Hi you! If your still taking drabble prompts, could you write something with dhawan master or dhawan doctor with reader who catches chill easily/ has trouble keeping warm? We have a massive cold front coming through rn and I'm freezing! Thank you for all your amazing pieces💜💜💜
> 
> Stay awesome!

**Cold hands mean a warm heart**

You wrapped your arms tighter around yourself as you struggled to quell the twitching muscles and rampant shivering that wracked your prone form. Barring the hot sticky blood that slipped down from your temple, your body felt as though it was devoid of heat, your limbs slowly turning into icicles as you transformed into a living ice statue. The cave you sat in was damp, dark and cold. The faint echoing droplets of water reverberating in the air around you and amplifying the effect of the bitter wind that whispered through the cracks in the walls.

With chattering teeth you arched your body forwards, your barely warm breath hitting the palms of your hands as you released a deep and shuddering sigh. A small cloud of condensation lingered in the empty ominous space before you, its white puffy cloud dissipating within seconds. Eyes shifting you focused on the silhouette that lingered across from you, their own disapproving gaze meeting yours in a fiery clash of tension.

“What?” You stated accusingly, your shoulders straightening as you tried to appear more comfortable and at ease with the dire situation you were currently in.

“Your teeth…” The Master gritted out, his eyes narrowed as he sat back against the rocky cave wall. “-are _snapping_.”

“And?” You digged again, the frustration and anger you felt for him slowly bubbling to the surface once more. 

A single bushy eyebrow slowly rose at the terseness of your tone, the Master’s arms crossing over his chest as he regarded you with mild disdain.

“It’s _loud_.”

“Oh s-sorry.” You mocked sarcastically, your jealousy for his indifference to the cold rearing its head once more. Shuffling backwards you increased the space between you, your back hitting the opposite wall as you tucked your knees further against your chest.

“I-I-I didn’t realise you T-Time Lords had the hearing capabilities of a b-bat.” You smirked to yourself as you settled further down against the damp jagged wall behind you. “Although t-that would explain a lot.”

The Master rolled his eyes as he skipped past the insult and returned to the small machine he was tinkering with in his lap. The small mass of bolts and cogs had once been a fully operational time skipper, or Vortex Manipulator as he had deemed it. A small portable time travelling machine that could snap around your wrist and pull you to any point in time and space. 

You closed your eyes as you focused on the soft clicks of his fingers tapping against the metal shell of the circuitry loop. His incessant tinkering serving as the perfect distraction for your mind, pulling it away from the slow loss of sensation that tingled its way outwards from your extremities . Numbly you noted that your teeth had returned to their chattering, your lips forced down tightly as you tried in vain to muffle the annoying sound; eager not to frustrate the ticking time bomb that sat across from you.

A crunch of metal against stone echoed throughout the tall chamber you sat in as the Master threw down the piece he had been tinkering with, your eyes snapping open to find his gaze trained on you once again. 

“Make it _stop_.”

“I can’t.” You whispered, your voice cracked around the edges as you fought back against the chill which seeped into your bones. “I’m cold.”

The Master’s mouth closed abruptly before opening and quickly closing once more, the words he had seemingly prepared for your rebuttal fading away as he shifted his shoulders and returned to his work once again. It seemed your honesty had been rewarded with a subtle shift in the ground you anxiously stood on with the Doctor’s enemy, his eyes trained in on the small dial he fiddled with as he tried to use the edge of his nail as a makeshift screwdriver.

“ _Humans_ …” The Master muttered lowly, as though he had heard your thoughts commending his ability to hold his tongue. “How you survived so long is beyond me.”

The sly insult bristled your sense of pride, your eyes rolling as your own insult slipped off your lips within seconds.

“ _Time Lords_ …there’s no end to your inflated egos.”

A sly smirk crawled across the Master’s features as he slowly tilted his head upwards to meet your gaze, his eyes wide and filled with a bubbling cauldron of emotion as he peered at you through his overgrown fringe. It was menacing, you’d give him that. But after a year of getting to know Oliver, one of his alternative personas, the darkness he tried so hard to exude just didn’t have the same effect on you anymore.

“Careful, _love_.” He tutted, his bottom lip trembling as he discarded the carcass of the Vortex Manipulator once more. “It would do you good to remember that although we are trapped together, I certainly don’t _require_ your presence.”

“Then why am I-I still here?”

“It’s a question I’ve been asking myself.”

Your eyes fluttered as you broke away from his intense stare, your attention becoming fixated on the shifting shadows of the cavern as you patiently awaited your rescue. Truth was you knew why you were here, after all you were the reason you had become trapped with the Master in the first place. The day had started off like they always did, normal- or as normal as they could be. You had met up with the Doctor and the Fam to travel to a new and distant world, exploring the markets and experiencing the wide range of alien cultures it had to offer. You had been minding your own business when the Master had suddenly popped back into existence, his hands encircling your neck as he held you hostage against the Doctor.

As always he had seemingly come prepared, his TCE clutched tightly in his opposite hand as he barked a series of orders to the Doctor. You had been lost throughout the majority of the stand off, your mind racing as you assessed the waves of mixed emotions that crashed over you at his reveal. Joy and relief had surged through your veins at knowledge he hadn’t died on Gallifrey, but the high had quickly been dealt a crushing blow as your joy melded into anger and relief into frustration. 

You hadn't been thinking when you jolted your elbow into his side, your hand wrenching the TCE from his grip and smashing it against the side of his wrist. The Vortex Manipulator short circuited instantly, cheap and nasty time travel came with the quality you’d expect. Latching onto you, you barely had a chance to scream before you zapped out of existence with the Master, your bodies twisting and turning through a whirling expanse before coming to an abrupt stop with the cavern floor. 

He had been angry at first, a rage burning brightly in his eyes as his hands wrapped tightly around your neck. There was no concern or care tucked away in his features, no sign of Oliver’s compassion as the gash on your forehead opened up and began to ooze. He was a shell of the man you had once known, and in that moment you had been prepared to die.

Only you didn’t. 

After a minute of squeezing and listening to your breathless pleas, the Master had released his hold and sulked off to the opposite side of the cave, slumping down the wall and taking up the position he held now. He had grumbled accusingly for the first couple of hours, declaring the idiocy of the human race and promising to wipe your species from existence for what you had done. He had then briefly wished for his TCE so that he could use its onboard homing device for his TARDIS, but you had quickly dismissed the idea as pointless seeing as you had dropped it the moment you teleported away. The information that you had lost his ‘classic’ device had sparked a new rage inside of him, his teeth gritted as he fell into a deafening silence once more.

What he didn’t know though, was that his TCE was still safely stowed away down the back of your jeans, out of reach and safely in your own possession.

Your reverie was cut short as a tightly wrapped ball of wool was thrown in your direction, the purple blur hitting you in the face and causing your head to smack back against the wall. Groaning, you reached upwards in annoyance, your hands clutching as the offending article and pulling it away from your features. Across from you, the Master acted as though he had no idea as to what had happened, his eyes downturned to the device as he continued to tinker away. Only this time, he was devoid of his typical purple coat.

“What-”

“I need to concentrate.” The Master commented offhandedly, his eyes narrowing as he plucked a tiny screw off the floor from beside him and continued to reposition the mass of fried wires. “I can’t do that with you shivering so loudly.”

Looking down at his coat, you slowly turned it over in your hands, your eyes flickering from the article of clothing and back to the Time Lord in a nervous tick. Suspiciously you uncurled the jacket and pulled it on over your existing clothing, the soft silk interior gliding across your skin as it settled down around your shoulders. The arms were too long for you, your fingers only just poking out of the end as it hung awkwardly down at the sides. 

You weren’t complaining though. In an instance the warmth of the Master’s coat encased you, the leftover heat from his own body thawing the stiffness from your fingers. Pulling it tighter around you, you dipped your head down against the collar of the material. If the Doctor was to have walked in you would have found it difficult to explain your current situation, especially as you closed your eyes and inhaled the scent that was so recognisably him. This coat was your past, a mottled mix of emotions, moments and memories all tied to some tailored purple wool and the subtle scent of citrus and fougere.

A wave of sadness washed through you as you were bitterly reminded of the heartbreak you had suffered at his hands, your eyes welling with a fresh veil of tears that you quickly blinked away. 

“T-Thank you.” You stuttered quietly, your eyes detached from his own as you scrambled to rebuild the wall of indifference you often regarded him with.

Silence fell across you both once more as you slowly started to shift into a dream like state, your arms wrapped tightly around yourself as you drifted on the edge of consciousness. Even when disassociated from your body you could feel the bitter cold that had seemingly settled into your bones permanently, your twitching muscles beginning to ache with exertion as the heat from your body was pulled away like a rug from beneath your feet.

_Your knuckles rapped across the wooden door impatiently, your cheeks stained with the remnants of tears as you waited for a response to your silent cries for help. Tapping your foot, you eyed up and down the long corridor of Oliver’s flat block, a shiver slipping down your spine as you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were being watched._

_In an instance the fear you had felt dissipated as the small rickety wooden door flew open to reveal a haggard looking O. His hair musseled and sticking up at off angles, a cheesy pun t-shirt thrown on the wrong way round in his rush to open the door._

_“You’re back?” He uttered, his eyes fluttering as he squinted against the blinding lights of the corridor._

_Glancing down at his watch, Oliver frowned. “At 2am.”_

_“I’m sorry” You pleaded, your voice weak as you felt your eyes shimmer with tears once more. “I’m sorry I-”_

_“Are you alright?” Oliver cut across once again, his hand seeking out past the boundaries of his door and clamping onto your shoulder._

_Tilting your head you felt your heart melt beneath his warm brown eyes, your skin crawling with a need that you had started to learn that only he could satisfy. Nodding your head slowly, you pushed away the dark thoughts that lingered on the edge of your mind and focused on him, your hand rising to meet his own, drawing it away from your shoulder. “Yeah it's been…” You trailed off, your fingers threading over his own as you played with them distractedly. “It’s been a hard trip.”_

_“The Doctor?” He whispered, his lip trembling with excitement and intrigue as he watched you carefully._

_Nodding slowly you watched as he to mirrored your actions, a silent understanding passing between you both. Glancing back inside at his apartment, you watched as Oliver seemingly considered his next action, his spare hand brushing through his hair as he tried in vain to adjust his already scattered appearance._

_“Do you want a cuppa?” Oliver questioned as he opened the door wider and gestured for you to enter._

_Smirking, you silently slipped past the door, your feet freezing just past the threshold as you waited for him to close it behind you. His body was close as he leaned forwards, his breath hot against your neck as his chest brushed against the inside of your arm. Your stomach twisted and flipped in anticipation as the crawling itch that pulsed across your skin increased in its intensity, your fingers rubbing together in an excited anticipation._

_It was only when you had heard the soft click of the lock that you turned on him suddenly, your hands wrapping around his neck as you pushed him away from the light switch and back towards his darkened bedroom room._

_Your teeth clashed together as your lips slipped across his own, Oliver’s own cries of surprise becoming quickly muted as he started to take the lead of the situation at hand. You had both rehearsed this countless times before, your movements calculated and sure as you slowly started to pull away at the layers that separated you. You became lost in the sensations: fingers gliding across each-others skin, breaths hot, heavy and intermingling in the limited space which separated you, teeth nipping at necks and lips, all in a desperate attempt to distract yourself from the horrors you had witnessed during your recent travels._

_“Do you want to-” Oliver broke off as you bit down on the crook of his neck, a low groan rumbling from the back of his throat as he pulled you back down onto the bed. “talk about it-”_

_“Later-” You hushed as you ran your fingers across his jaw and up through his hair._

_“First, I need my-” You trailed off, your bottom lip pressed between your teeth as you recalled the playful pet name he had requested from you the first time you had spent the night._

_“Master.”_

_A wide grin broke out across Oliver’s features, so separate and distinct from his usual adorable gaze. There was a darkness in him that sat waiting to be unravelled, a mystery waiting to be solved. You had promised yourself that night that you would discover the truth beneath the bright exterior he always portrayed, that you would follow the dark tendrils that slipped free through the cracks in his mask._

_Little did you know that the truth was so much more than you had ever expected._

Jolting awake you suppressed a scream as you noted your movement was restricted, a set of heavy arms wrapped tightly around your shoulders and pulling you back against a softer mass. Inhaling deeply, you released a shuddering sigh as your world rocked with a violent sense of nausea. The soft echoing drips of water droplets your only distraction from the frantic spinning of the room. 

Regaining clarity through the fog that clouded your head, you tilted your chin to survey your new position. It didn’t take long for you to realise that your head was now pressed against someone’s neck, their body propped beneath your own as they pulled you in close to their warmth. It was hard not to melt into their embrace, especially as their hot breath fanned across your features. Through blurry eyes you distantly clocked that it was the Master who had seemingly moved across to settle in beside you, his skin boiling in contrast to your own. 

“W-what are you doing-” You stuttered in confusion, your teeth chattering more violently than before.

The Master shifted uncomfortably as his hands slowly slipped down your arms, his fingers flinching away from your skin at first before curling delightfully between the gaps of your own. With a heavy sigh he looked away towards the ceiling of the cave, his features hidden from your prying gaze as you tried to peer at him from your perch tucked into his side.

“Your biology is _insufferable_.” 

You scoffed at the remark, your voice weak even to your own ears.

“You’re _insufferable_ …”

“I know.” The Master muttered back, his hands tightening slightly as he drew his legs up high.

“You were-” He cleared his throat, the awkwardness of your situation disrupting the usual tirade of insults you threw in each other's direction. “-talking in your sleep-”

“Oliver...” You chattered, your eyes fluttering closed as you pressed yourself closer against his neck. 

Sighing you felt your mind wander once more, the pang of your heart steering the conversation towards a topic you had both seemingly avoided like the plague. The Master meanwhile stiffened beneath you at the sound of his old name, his hearts starting to race within his chest.

“That’s not my name.” He forced, his tone carrying little to no emotion.

“I-I know.” You sighed, the disappointment clear in your voice. Boldly you pulled your thumb across the back of his hand, a gentle caress that could easily be excused for a subtle movement.

“B-but…” You forced out, your conflicting thoughts fading as they passed through your fingers like sand. “I-I think he’s in there somewhere.”

“He was an image.” The Master scoffed again, his hand tightening in yours minutely as to drive home his point. “An act.”

“He was you.”

Releasing his tight hold on you, the Master shifted your shoulders around, your head limply rolling to the side as your vision was directed upwards to meet his own. His eyes were still the same soft brown, their surfaces filled with countless emotions you could never pinpoint just one. Their edges were tinted red from tiredness, his bottom lip trembling from what you assumed to be his own response to the bitter cold wind that continued to seep in through the walls.

“If you don’t _stop_ talking-” The Master stated, his tone threatening. “I’ll let you freeze to death.”

“W-What would the Doctor…. say….”

Gritting his teeth he reluctantly pulled you back down and into his side, his arms slipping down and underneath the thick purple coat he had given you. Clasping tightly around you, he gently lifted you up and further into his lap, his legs propped up ever so slightly in order to keep you cocooned tightly into his chest.

“Don’t speak _a word_ of this.” He commanded, his words heavy with conviction. “-to anyone.”

You smiled weakly at his response, your eyes rolling into the back of your head as you felt your grip on reality weaken. Slumping forwards, your hand grappled to the front of his waistcoat in fear, your heart racing in your chest as a dull ache pulsed across your temples.

“Surprised you haven’t left already…” You whispered, more so for yourself than him. 

If the Master heard your declaration he didn’t comment, his arms simply readjusting you once more as he pressed his lips down against your head. If you hadn’t both been slowly freezing to death then you would have paid more attention to the tenderness of the moment, but seeing as the Master was likely using you once more for his benefit, you elected not to comment on the simple survival tactic he had employed.

“I’m glad you’re not dead.” You whispered again, your vision darkening as the freezing chill closed in around your heart. “Im…”

Your words became slurred as you felt your grip on his shirt falter, your head rolling back and away from his neck. Frowning, the Master tilted your limp form upwards, your head falling languidly into his shoulder once again as you watched silently through your quickly deteriorating vision.

“Y/N?”

“Master…” You croaked.

For what felt like the first time in years, you could have sworn you sighted the old caring gaze of Oliver splashed across his features, a shimmer of concern reflected in his eyes as time slowed around you.

“Master-”

“Shut-up!” He snapped, his hands repositioning you in his lap as he slowly ran them down your body. He was searching, his eyes shifting in a calculated manner as he seemingly tried to locate the one thing he needed. “I’m trying to think-”

The Masters words were cut off as his palm traced the curve of your back, his fingers fumbling with the edge of your jeans as his touch brushed against your skin. With a sharp tug he pulled free the TCE that you had secretly stashed- or rather- had seemingly stashed in ‘secret’. Turning the device over in his hand, the Time Lord quickly began adjusting the dials and fiddling with the settings, his eyes hesitantly glancing across to your own lifeless gaze as you drew the occasional shuddering breath.

“TCE…” You breathed, “How-”

“All along.” The Master smirked triumphantly, his fingers clicking the final bolt in place as his free arm wrapped tighter around your own. “I just wanted to watch you suf-” 

He broke off, his voice cracking unintentionally as he quickly averted his eyes. Luckily his stumble was saved by the sharp chirp of his Tissue Compression Elimination, the small display flashing brightly as it signalled that it’s coordinates had been processed. 

Turning back to you, the Master’s eyebrows wiggled as he flashed a daring grin,

“Hold on.”


End file.
